How I remember those long ago, carefree days when I, as a young
factory worker, trudged through 5 miles of knee deep snow in order to
put in my 8 hours at the drapery factory. Loyal? Ha! If I failed to
clock in, I lost the days pay. No sick leave. No time paid in event
of inclement weather. When my first born died at birth, the three
days I was off work were unpaid days.
Some folks look down their noses at the Lower Working Class, the
working poor. But these are the hardy Souls who keep the fires
burning, the lights on, the water flowing, the doors of commerce open
during all times, good or bad. Too bad we treat them like whipped
dogs. They deserve better, but they will only receive better when
they wake up and demand it.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/27/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> No snow days for low-wage workers
> Maids, caregivers, janitors and drug store clerks make their way to work as
> public transit shuts down
> January 26, 2015 3:45PM ET
> by E. Tammy Kim @etammykim & Amel Ahmed @amelscript
> JAMAICA, N.Y. - To prepare for "snowmageddon," Ana Navarrete stocked up on
> diapers Monday afternoon. She and her ex-boyfriend, Pedro Blanco, perused
> the baby aisle of a CVS drug store, having left their two-month-old son
> with
> a babysitter.
> As the snow piled up on Hillside Avenue, Navarrete thought about her
> imminent commute. She works nights, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., as a hotel maid on
> Long Island, about 25 miles east. She drives 60 minutes each way - much
> longer in the snow - for just $8.50 per hour, 25 cents below the state
> minimum wage.
> "I have to go to work," Navarrete said, reassured that Blanco, a
> landscaper,
> could stay with the baby overnight. "My boss is making me work tonight and
> tomorrow night. If I didn't go in, I would lose my job."
> In the region affected by the storm, over 577,000 workers labor at or below
> the minimum wage (PDF). They are overrepresented in the service sector and
> thus unlikely to get a paid snow day: maids, nannies, home health aides,
> taxi drivers, fast-food cooks, grocery store stockers and janitors, to name
> a few. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these employees rarely
> enjoy flexibility on the job. Nationally, only 20 percent of low-wage
> workers (in the bottom tenth of private-sector earners) enjoy paid sick
> leave. And only 39 percent have paid vacation, let alone "personal days."
> A massive disruption like a blizzard hits low-wage employees hardest, said
> Amy Traub, senior policy analyst at liberal think tank Demos. "There is no
> working from home if you're a sales associate or if you're a cashier. If
> they can't get to work because of weather, you miss a paycheck. If the
> store
> closes early or works with a skeleton staff, you miss a paycheck."
> 'I have to go to work. My boss is making me work tonight and tomorrow
> night.
> If I didn't go in, I would lose my job.'
> Ana Navarrete
> Hotel maid on the night shift
> Some states and municipalities battling the storm - Massachusetts,
> Connecticut, New York City and Jersey City, N.J. - require employers to
> provide paid time off. But laws typically do not apply to very small
> businesses; nor do they cover missed work due to lack of child care or a
> shutdown in public transit. "There's no recourse if [the boss] says, 'Come
> here or you're fired,' unless you have a union contract," Traub said.
> While Navarrete planned to drive through the storm, thousands of other
> low-wage workers kept an eye on public transit alerts. By late afternoon
> Monday, New York officials were predicting suspensions of bus, train and
> subway services before midnight.
> Many employees commute a long way, but the question is more "how arduous
> the
> journey is - how well the transit system does or does not connect," said
> Elena Conte, senior organizer for planning and policy at the Pratt Center
> for Community Development. In New York City, "lower-income workers, with
> the
> gentrification coming from Manhattan's core, tend to be at greater
> distances
> from the core. Whether it's manufacturing or home health care aides that
> are
> traveling to work with clients, it's not easy to get where the clients
> are."
> The trek to Long Island Monday night would be feasible, but Navarrete
> worried about getting back. If the blizzard continued through the night,
> she'd ask to stay at the hotel between shifts - and call on a babysitter to
> cover the day shift at home.
> No snow days for low-wage workers
> Maids, caregivers, janitors and drug store clerks make their way to work as
> public transit shuts down
> January 26, 2015 3:45PM ET
> by E. Tammy Kim @etammykim & Amel Ahmed @amelscript
> JAMAICA, N.Y. - To prepare for "snowmageddon," Ana Navarrete stocked up on
> diapers Monday afternoon. She and her ex-boyfriend, Pedro Blanco, perused
> the baby aisle of a CVS drug store, having left their two-month-old son
> with
> a babysitter.
> As the snow piled up on Hillside Avenue, Navarrete thought about her
> imminent commute. She works nights, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., as a hotel maid on
> Long Island, about 25 miles east. She drives 60 minutes each way - much
> longer in the snow - for just $8.50 per hour, 25 cents below the state
> minimum wage.
> "I have to go to work," Navarrete said, reassured that Blanco, a
> landscaper,
> could stay with the baby overnight. "My boss is making me work tonight and
> tomorrow night. If I didn't go in, I would lose my job."
> In the region affected by the storm, over 577,000 workers labor at or below
> the minimum wage (PDF). They are overrepresented in the service sector and
> thus unlikely to get a paid snow day: maids, nannies, home health aides,
> taxi drivers, fast-food cooks, grocery store stockers and janitors, to name
> a few. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these employees rarely
> enjoy flexibility on the job. Nationally, only 20 percent of low-wage
> workers (in the bottom tenth of private-sector earners) enjoy paid sick
> leave. And only 39 percent have paid vacation, let alone "personal days."
> A massive disruption like a blizzard hits low-wage employees hardest, said
> Amy Traub, senior policy analyst at liberal think tank Demos. "There is no
> working from home if you're a sales associate or if you're a cashier. If
> they can't get to work because of weather, you miss a paycheck. If the
> store
> closes early or works with a skeleton staff, you miss a paycheck."
> 'I have to go to work. My boss is making me work tonight and tomorrow
> night.
> If I didn't go in, I would lose my job.'
> Ana Navarrete
> Hotel maid on the night shift
> Some states and municipalities battling the storm - Massachusetts,
> Connecticut, New York City and Jersey City, N.J. - require employers to
> provide paid time off. But laws typically do not apply to very small
> businesses; nor do they cover missed work due to lack of child care or a
> shutdown in public transit. "There's no recourse if [the boss] says, 'Come
> here or you're fired,' unless you have a union contract," Traub said.
> While Navarrete planned to drive through the storm, thousands of other
> low-wage workers kept an eye on public transit alerts. By late afternoon
> Monday, New York officials were predicting suspensions of bus, train and
> subway services before midnight.
> Many employees commute a long way, but the question is more "how arduous
> the
> journey is - how well the transit system does or does not connect," said
> Elena Conte, senior organizer for planning and policy at the Pratt Center
> for Community Development. In New York City, "lower-income workers, with
> the
> gentrification coming from Manhattan's core, tend to be at greater
> distances
> from the core. Whether it's manufacturing or home health care aides that
> are
> traveling to work with clients, it's not easy to get where the clients
> are."
> The trek to Long Island Monday night would be feasible, but Navarrete
> worried about getting back. If the blizzard continued through the night,
> she'd ask to stay at the hotel between shifts - and call on a babysitter to
> cover the day shift at home.
>
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> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
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